Molecular Interactions. On the Ambiguity of Ordinary Statements in Biomedical Literature

Statements about the behavior of biochemical entities (e.g., about the interaction between two proteins) abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that have to be taken into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering: Such statements can not only be understood as event reporting statements, but also as ascriptions of dispositions or tendencies that may or may not refer to collectives of interacting molecules or even to collectives of interaction events

Financial Inclusion and Financial Stability: Current Policy Issues

The recent financial crisis has shown that financial innovation can have devastating systemic impacts. International standard setters’ and national regulators’ response has been a global concerted effort to overhaul and tighten financial regulations. However, at a time of designing stricter regulations, it is crucial to avoid a backlash against financial inclusion. In this chapter, we argue that greater financial inclusion presents opportunities to enhance financial stability. Our arguments are based on the following insights: - Financial inclusion poses risks at the institutional level, but these are hardly systemic in nature. Evidence suggests that low-income savers and borrowers tend to maintain solid financial behavior throughout financial crises, keeping deposits in a safe place and paying back their loans. - Institutional risk profiles at the bottom end of the financial market are characterized by large numbers of vulnerable clients who own limited balances and transact small volumes. Although this profile may raise some concerns regarding reputational risks for the central bank and consumer protection, in terms of financial instability, the risk posed by inclusive policies is negligible. - In addition, risks prevalent at the institutional level are manageable with known prudential tools and more effective customer protection. - The potential costs of financial inclusion are compensated for by important dynamic benefits that enhance financial stability over time through a deeper and more diversified financial system. In the following pages, we present the current state of financial inclusion globally. We also explore some trends in financial inclusion and what the most effective policies are to favor it. In doing so, we suggest that innovations aimed at countering financial exclusion may help strengthen financial systems rather than weakening them.financial inclusion; financial stability; costs and benefits; current policy issues

The “treatment gap” in global mental health reconsidered: sociotherapy for collective trauma in Rwanda

Background: The “treatment gap” (TG) for mental disorders refers to the difference that exists between the number of people who need care and those who receive care. The concept is strongly promoted by the World Health Organization and widely used in the context of low- and middle-income countries. Although accepting the many demonstrable benefits that flow from this approach, it is important to critically reflect on the limitations of the concept of the TG and its implications for building capacity for mental health services in Rwanda. Objective: The article highlights concerns that the evidence base for mental health interventions is not globally valid, and problematizes the preponderance of psychiatric approaches in international guidelines for mental health. Specifically, the risk of medicalization of social problems and the limited way in which “community” has been conceptualized in global mental health discourses are addressed. Rather than being used as a method for increasing economic efficiency (i.e., reducing healthcare costs), “community” should be promoted as a means of harnessing collective strengths and resources to help promote mental well-being. This may be particularly beneficial for contexts, like Rwanda, where community life has been disrupted by collective violence, and the resulting social isolation constitutes an important determinant of mental distress. Conclusions: Moving forward there is a need to consider alternative paradigms where individual distress is understood as a symptom of social distress, which extends beyond the more individually oriented TG paradigm. Sociotherapy, an intervention used in Rwanda over the past 10 years, is presented as an example of how communities of support can be built to promote mental health and psychosocial well-being

Kernelization Lower Bounds By Cross-Composition

We introduce the cross-composition framework for proving kernelization lower bounds. A classical problem L AND/OR-cross-composes into a parameterized problem Q if it is possible to efficiently construct an instance of Q with polynomially bounded parameter value that expresses the logical AND or OR of a sequence of instances of L. Building on work by Bodlaender et al. (ICALP 2008) and using a result by Fortnow and Santhanam (STOC 2008) with a refinement by Dell and van Melkebeek (STOC 2010), we show that if an NP-hard problem OR-cross-composes into a parameterized problem Q then Q does not admit a polynomial kernel unless NP \subseteq coNP/poly and the polynomial hierarchy collapses. Similarly, an AND-cross-composition for Q rules out polynomial kernels for Q under Bodlaender et al.'s AND-distillation conjecture. Our technique generalizes and strengthens the recent techniques of using composition algorithms and of transferring the lower bounds via polynomial parameter transformations. We show its applicability by proving kernelization lower bounds for a number of important graphs problems with structural (non-standard) parameterizations, e.g., Clique, Chromatic Number, Weighted Feedback Vertex Set, and Weighted Odd Cycle Transversal do not admit polynomial kernels with respect to the vertex cover number of the input graphs unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses, contrasting the fact that these problems are trivially fixed-parameter tractable for this parameter. After learning of our results, several teams of authors have successfully applied the cross-composition framework to different parameterized problems. For completeness, our presentation of the framework includes several extensions based on this follow-up work. For example, we show how a relaxed version of OR-cross-compositions may be used to give lower bounds on the degree of the polynomial in the kernel size.Comment: A preliminary version appeared in the proceedings of the 28th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2011) under the title "Cross-Composition: A New Technique for Kernelization Lower Bounds". Several results have been strengthened compared to the preliminary version (http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.4224). 29 pages, 2 figure

On the Analysis of a Simple Evolutionary Algorithm With Dynamic Parameter Control

Evolutionary algorithms usually are controlled by various parameters and it is well known that an appropriate choice of these control parameters is crucial for the efficiency of the algorithms. In many cases it seems to be favorable not to use a static set of parameter settings for a problem but let the sizes of the parameters vary during an optimization. Even for the most simple type of nonstatic parameter settings, dynamic parameter control, no formal general proof is known that varying the parameter settings is advantageous. Here, a very simple evolutionary algorithm is analyzed, and an exponential improvement against even the optimal static parameter setting is proved. This result is closely related to the open question whether simulated annealing with a natural cooling schedule can provably outperform the Metropolis algorithm on a natural problem

Efficient Basis Formulation for (1+1)-Dimensional SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory: Spectral calculations with matrix product states

We propose an explicit formulation of the physical subspace for a (1+1)-dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory, where the gauge degrees of freedom are integrated out. Our formulation is completely general, and might be potentially suited for the design of future quantum simulators. Additionally, it allows for addressing the theory numerically with matrix product states. We apply this technique to explore the spectral properties of the model and the effect of truncating the gauge degrees of freedom to a small finite dimension. In particular, we determine the scaling exponents for the vector mass. Furthermore, we also compute the entanglement entropy in the ground state and study its scaling towards the continuum limit.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, version 2: published versio

Cross-Composition: A New Technique for Kernelization Lower Bounds

We introduce a new technique for proving kernelization lower bounds, called cross-composition. A classical problem L cross-composes into a parameterized problem Q if an instance of Q with polynomially bounded parameter value can express the logical OR of a sequence of instances of L. Building on work by Bodlaender et al. (ICALP 2008) and using a result by Fortnow and Santhanam (STOC 2008) we show that if an NP-complete problem cross-composes into a parameterized problem Q then Q does not admit a polynomial kernel unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. Our technique generalizes and strengthens the recent techniques of using OR-composition algorithms and of transferring the lower bounds via polynomial parameter transformations. We show its applicability by proving kernelization lower bounds for a number of important graphs problems with structural (non-standard) parameterizations, e.g., Chromatic Number, Clique, and Weighted Feedback Vertex Set do not admit polynomial kernels with respect to the vertex cover number of the input graphs unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses, contrasting the fact that these problems are trivially fixed-parameter tractable for this parameter. We have similar lower bounds for Feedback Vertex Set.Comment: Updated information based on final version submitted to STACS 201